In this blog entry, I would like to discuss the popular use of body-coloured plastic for the external car body parts, especially the bumpers. I recalled that back in 1989, my dad bought a metallic blue Toyota Corolla. Folks in my generation would recall that it comes with a matt black front and rear bumpers, at a time when more and more cars come equipped with body-coloured ones. As a little boy, I would tell him, “Dad, the car’s bumpers are freaking ugly”. His reply was, “Bumpers are meant for adsorbing shocks, not for decorative purpose!” .As an adult now, I can appreciate what he says.

Our family used to own an FD Civic. The low profile of the car means that the front bumper is close to the ground. In a carpark where the kerb is high, the bottom of the bumper would scrape the kerb, exposing the black base of the body-coloured bumpe, not to mention the unsightly scratch marks. I believe many FD Civic owners could share my pain. From this experience, I realized that body-coloured bumpers are not so practical after all, although they make the car look uniform in colour at the showroom.

High Kerb

Perhaps designers are realizing the problem with body-coloured plastic parts and in recent years, there have been an increase in the use of black plastic parts, especially in locations close to the ground. A case in point is the all new 2011 Ford Focus.




From the above illustrations, we can see that even the side of the undercarriage comes fitted with black plastics. The driver need not be worried about ugly scratch marks should he carelessly mount the kerb when negotiating a bend in a carpark. Going forward, I hope that more cars would adopt the subtle but practical design cues of the Focus.

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